The auditory brainstem response (ABR) audiometry is the most widely used method for objective hearing test.
For ABR audiometry, an electrode is placed on a subject's head and test stimulus is repetitively presented at least more than 1,500 times. After averaging the data, patient's audibility is determined by presence or absence of Wave V.
Although a click is commonly used for ABR audiometry, this stimulus is inappropriate for estimate of hearing thresholds on specific frequencies, such as 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz, 4000 Hz, and 8000 Hz. For this reason, tone-pip (or tone-burst) stimulus which has very short duration and can be presented as individual frequency, is used for estimate of the frequency-specific threshold. In this case, the term “tone-pip (or tone-burst) ABR audiometry” is currently used.